Ruth Franklin on her selection: Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) is deservedly famous for suspenseful fiction like “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House. During her lifetime, though, she was equally well known for the humorous stories she wrote about her absent-minded-professor husband and their four children, published in popular women’s magazines of the era and collected in two best-selling memoirs, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons. “Charles,” the story I’ve chosen to read, is her first family story and perhaps the funniest, capped by a perfect punchline. Life Among the Savages, by Shirley Jackson Music: "Shift of Currents" by Blue Dot Sessions // CC BY-NC 2.0